Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1887-10-08
ESPECIALLY FAVORED.
"Zen0's" Definitions Consideration.
yertible Capital and Wealth.

definitions himself.
He ought not to reverse the axiom
"Iabor creates all wealth." nor can
he truly say-as he does-"all that
Labor produces is wealth." Labor
may as well create poverty. 1t GER
tainly does in very many cases for
the laborer and also for labor's boss,
if he can not sell the wares.
If he insists that "the workmen's
tools, no matter how insignificant,
are wealth, because produced by
by labor" we must insist that this
usage of the term ''wealth' is poeti
cal, not scientific. Science would
confne itself to stating that ga
workman's tools are an iniinitesimal
portion of wealth."
His definition: "Capital is that
part of wealth used to assist the hand
in producing more wealth" is GER
tainly incomplete. This definition
was invented for the purpose of veil
ing the fact that most capital in ex-
istence, if not all, was produced by
underpayng the Glands" of others,
robbing them under the disguise of
law Of part of their earnings. This
must be evident when we consider
that even the raw materials and the
tools of the workman are with rare
exceptions produced by undergrad
labor, and that even the smallest in
dependent workshop cannot be set
up except after the worker had laid
up some savings in banks which paid
him interest that came out of the
employment of undergrad wages la
borers. Butindependent workshops
are, nowadays, the exception, not
the rule.
"The mind gets confused and our
enemies laugh when we regard as
capital only the tools in the hands
of monopoly" We assure "Zeno"
that our enemies do not laugh at
seeing their sophistries unveiled and
their ambiguous definitions over
hauled.
"Zeno" asks us: GLOW can rent
be a ,c0re?" He calls it ga division
of wealth, such as interest or profit. !"
That explains nothing. The term
"rent" both in the hands of the
rent-nayer and the rent-receiver is
an equivalent for a certain sum of
ware Tor if "Zeno" prefers that term,
of merchandise). Equivalents are,
in political economy, inter-convert-
ible terms because they are IN ex-
change convertible magnitudes.
Take money for example, of which
"Zeno' says: "Money never was con-
verted into merchandise" OF course
not in a chemical or physical sense
it is not melted in crucible to come
out of it as q ton of sugar, or a bar
rel of flour, etc. The conversion
spoken Of among political economists
does not mean transformation of
substance, but exchange of equiva-
Tents. Does "Zeno" not know that !?
"Money can not be classed with
wares" says 'Zeno." How strange.
Money is exchanged every moment
for wares, equivalent wares, and one
kind of money for an equivalent of
other kinds of money-and "Zeno"
cannot find it so be a ware. When
loaned out it must be repaid with an
equivalent and some more money
aud yet it is not called ware! Every
banker will tell him, "My money is
my ware or merchandise and turned
about with a proft"-but "Zeno"
will not believe him.
"Neither is gold capital, just be-
cause it is possible to exchange it for
capital" says "Zeno." He comes to
this strange opinion, because in his
eyes money is capital when it assists
in reproduction only. Then it would
not be capital to-day, when it is kept
in the safe to be paid out tomorrow
in wages, for materials or for pro-
duction expenses. No book-keeper
would so consider the thing.
"Rent-title is only pOwer to ex-
tort portion of the production of
land. 1t is this power, privilege or
franchise that is bought and sold,
not the land itself" says "Zeno," as
though We had maintained the con-
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